The Disappointment
by Hyaenaa
Summary: Dagur's thirst for power and his forced title of "deranged" was something that festered over the years of his childhood. The path he was forced down to become the way that he did was not a pleasant one. There are no happy endings.


**WARNINGS FOR: animal abuse, forced sexual activity/rape, incest, necrophilia, child abuse and manipulation, death, excessive violence/gore, blood drinking, and romanticization of neurological disorders. This is not a happy story.**

* * *

**The Disappointment**

* * *

The thing that scares a man most is that of which he can not predict. And to be unpredictable, that is the determining point of being insane. In order to kill a demon, you have to become one.

That was what Dagur had known to be true from the time that he was a mere lad, blossoming into a striking warrior to one day succeed his father in the business of being a chief. In truth, his father, Oswald the Agreeable, was a pleasant, yet fearful man. He was the epitome of sanity, always well natured, true to his word, and predictable. That was what left him so open to attacks from various people that he'd come to trust over the years. He'd chosen a path that was simply not properly aligned with the viking way.

Dagur's grandfather, Galinn the Great, was a true viking. He'd been more or less the one to truly raise Dagur. Dagur looked up to him with great fervor, wishing to learn all of the man's ways and become a powerful viking as well. Dagur's sister, Líf, was more attached to Oswald. It was, in this way, that they were raised to be two entirely different people, despite their strong blood relation.

Líf was a gentle, kindhearted viking. She would spend her time reading, becoming educated on history and indulging in clever battle plans that might be useful for the future, be it that she'd ever have to use them. She trained to be strong, as a viking was meant to, but only for the purpose of self defense.

Dagur became prone to tantrums when he wasn't given what he wanted. Being the rather spoiled brat of the family, there were but two things that could halt his fits. His grandfather, or being given what he wanted. Galinn, of course, was only amused and watched with mirth as Oswald tried, in vain, to soothe his child without giving in. In the end, Dagur would always get what he wanted, whether it be a new weapon he didn't need or clothes made from furs from far off lands.

Galinn was ashamed of Oswald's diplomatic, honest behavior. He sought out the true viking mannerisms in his first born, Dagur, by training him to become a harsh warrior at a very young age. By the time that Dagur was just five, he'd begun by killing small creatures, such as beavers or dogs. He trained by either gutting them, spilling their intestines to the ground or beheading them, jaggedly using his sword to pry their head from their mutilated body. On rare occasions, he would crush their skulls. His father was tight lipped and indifferent if not mildly disapproving of these endeavors, but Galinn was proud, and would shoot his son looks that promised violence if anything negative were said on behalf of Dagur's warrior triumphs. Dagur's mother had nothing to say. She only brushed his hair with utmost gentility, as though ignorant of the blood that had been washed out of it hours before.

Dagur was taught that life was meaningless, and to him, this became the unquestioned truth. An animal's life was, in particular, of no value. The sole value a human life held to him was the concept of using that human to his benefit before offing them, as he'd been so keenly taught by his grandfather. The only life that meant anything to him was that of his younger sister's, merely because he felt a duty to protect her like an older brother should.

He would often venture on exotic hunting trips with Galinn, to which they would explore the dense foliage of distant forests on unclaimed islands. Each time they would bring back a prize. A Gronkle's skull, a Zippleback's double-heart, a Deadly Nadder's wings.

A particular trip haunted Dagur's mind countless nights to come.

"Eyes front, little man," Galinn had sneered in a militant manner as he forced his seven year old grandchild to trudge through woods.

Dagur gazed up at him with firmly obedient eyes, nodding. "Which dragon are we going to hunt now, Great?"

"A Monstrous Nightmare." Galinn grinned, exposing yellowed teeth. "These beasts are hard to predict, Dagur. There's more to it than simply murdering. In order to slay these demons..." He leaned in, pressing a thumb to Dagur's forehead and pushing him back. "You have to _become_ a demon."

Dagur clutched his sword closer to his body, nodding furiously.

When they came across a Monstrous Nightmare, she'd been nursing her babies, feeding them regurgitated fish. Galinn was not moved by her maternal instincts. He shot arrows to distract her, before urging Dagur to come forward and claim the dragon's head.

But Dagur had hesitated.

His sword had slipped from his grasp and clattered to the ground uselessly.

Never in his life would Dagur be able to comprehend what it was that made him falter, but regardless, it had happened, and it was enough for the Monstrous Nightmare to slip away with her children. Galinn was livid. He'd thrown Dagur against the splintering bark of a tree, grasping his throat in an iron death-grip.

"How _dare_ you?!" Galinn hissed, the stench of the rotting yak they'd had for dinner the night prior clinging to his breath. "You let the creature slip by! You want to take after your pathetic father? You want to become_ Dagur the Disappointment!?_"

The way those words had been screamed into his face, embedding themselves into his skull for anxiety-ridden midnights to come, had caused something to really stir within Dagur.

"No!" He'd choked out in response. "I don't want to be Dagur the Disappointment!"

"Then," Galinn released him. Pink splotches began to blossom around Dagur's neck where Galinn's hand had been. "Bring me back her head, boy."

Dagur had raced off furiously, stealth near forgotten as he rushed to find the Monstrous Nightmare. He'd used a bola to trap her and had advanced with no fear this time, no trepidation. Even as she flamed up and resorted to sorrowful mewling when he crushed one of her babies' heads beneath his boot, he came forth with his sword drawn.

He watched the light drain from her eyes, and in a simultaneous fashion, it was as though the same light from his very soul had been sucked from his young body. Somehow, the blood that had gushed from her frayed arteries never seemed to wash out of the tunic he'd worn that day.

Her skull made a wall mounting, and aside from a few pat on the backs here or there from other Beserkers, it was primarily disregarded. He had an inkling of suspicion that Galinn never truly forgave him for that moment of hesitation.

When Dagur turned ten, he became applicable to follow his father on business trips. His sister would remain behind with his mother back on Beserker island. It was there on Berk that he'd discovered the Hooligan tribe had warriors much like the Beserker tribe, albeit, many of them were far less intense. The other chief's son in particular - Dagur believed his name was Heggi or something of the sort - was reprehensibly brittle. He lacked the warrior skills necessary to become a true viking, and yet, Oswald took a great liking to him. Dagur resented that, but aside from noting how his father seemed to wish Heggi was his son and not him, Dagur didn't note much of the boy. For the most part, it was amusing to watch the Hooligan heir flounder around uselessly while Dagur broke random objects he found lying about. Heggi also made an excellent target, reminding Dagur much of the smaller animals he'd hunted before dragons.

He was twelve when he cogs of his mind began to turn over the ideology of power. The amount of power his father had, that went to waste because of Oswald's fear. It elicited a spark of displeasure on Dagur's behalf. With the armada he wielded, he could push dragons into extinction. He could force other tribes to kiss his boots. He could take their resources and distribute them among his own people. He could be more than just the Agreeable. He could be the Feared.

There was something about the way that Oswald squandered his potential that made Dagur painfully aggravated.

The following year, when he'd revisited Berk for the annual treaty signing, he'd used his father for a knife throwing target. Oswald was alarmed, but not outright disapproving. He was far too afraid to disapprove of anything. Stoik seemed to take it as a father-son bonding idea, but Heggi didn't take so well to the activity.

It wasn't until the last day of that particular visit that he'd actually discovered the boy's name was Hiccup. In truth, that seemed far more fitting of such a scrawny child. Even at eight, he should have had at least more bulk.

"Why are you so difficult to deal with?" Hiccup had whined as he dug out a knife that Dagur had thrown moments ago into the wall beside him. "Why can't you behave like you're a'supposed to?"

Dagur shrugged, digging the blade casually into the floorboard beneath him as he carved a crude image of the Skrill. "You don't behave like a viking."

"You act crazy!" Hiccup threw up his hands in exasperation.

Dagur hadn't paid much heed to the rest of the rant, as Hiccup's words never really interested him to begin with. Still, a madman was better than a coward, in his mind, and when it came down to it, that was really all he had absorbed from Hiccup's influence.

Fourteen was when something changed.

Galinn was growing impatient for war. He stressed the importance of it to his grandchildren, both Líf and Dagur, constantly. Conquering was a necessity if they wanted to keep their reputation of being Beserkers. The former glory of their tribe was fading as the peace drew on. One night, in a drunken stupor, he snapped.

Oswald was reading Líf a story while Dagur sat by the window, sharpening an axe.

"This woman has made you soft!" He'd bellowed as he burst into the room, holding Dagur's mother, Erna, by her hair. She screamed and struggled against his grip.

The children and their father started, Dagur's blade making a screeching sound when he'd scraped the metal too fast.

Galinn threw Erna to the ground, kicking her in the stomach.

"Father, stop this madness!" Oswald pleaded weakly, trembling as he stood. "I asked you to let her be from now on!"

"Oswald," Erna whimpered weakly as she reached for him.

"You don't know the first thing about madness," Galinn hissed, before he grasped at Erna's tunic and tore through it.

She sobbed out in horror and Líf shrieked when her mother's breasts were exposed. A purple bruise was forming where Galinn had kicked Erna moments ago, and this time, he stomped on her rib cage. A sickening crack filled the air, as her sobbing increased into wails.

"Stop," Oswald now begged pathetically, tears falling from his frightened eyes.

Galinn tore open her undergarments, throwing the destroyed cloth to the wall as he huffed out a labored breath of arousal. "Dagur, come here." He commanded.

"No!" Oswald yelped.

But Dagur did as told, his gaze locking with his mother's. She stared up at him in utter terror as he came forth slowly, unsure of what to expect.

"Breed her." Galinn ordered.

The weeping returned, loud enough to fill the entire house. Oswald said nothing as he stared in petrified resignation, and Dagur, while only partially grasping the command, did the one thing he'd sworn never to do again. He hesitated.

Galin looked down upon him with disgusted eyes, before he forced his grandson forward, pressing his crotch against his own mother's.

"You don't want to be a disappointment, do you?" He whispered into Dagur's ear as he reached around him to unbuckle his belt. "Forever branded as Dagur the Disappointment? An even worse chief than Oswald the Agreeable..."

Dagur stared down at his mother's genitalia, her trembling, bruised skin as she sniveled and keened, gasping every now and then as the lurching of her tears caused her broken ribs to scrape her organs. The same woman that had brushed his hair when he was a child.

"I'm not a disappointment." Was all he could manage in an apathetic murmur.

Dagur forced himself inside.

He stared at the wall, in a daze, repelling the thought of what he was doing as he raped his own mother. Her every shriek, her sob, the echoing laughter of Galinn that flooded his ears, all repressed as he stared at the wall blankly. He didn't even remember orgasming before it was over, and her tears died down as she laid in a crumpled mess, used and traumatized.

Galinn allowed the ruined family to stick there in silence for about an hour or so, before he came forth and, using his iron toed boot, stomped down on Erna's head. Her skull snapped, and blood sprayed the vicinity, including Dagur. Her brain matter coated his sweaty, expressionless face, the bone and blood splayed out in all sorts of directions. It was then that Galinn ushered Dagur away from her mutilated body - he'd been too alarmed and out of it to move on his own - and unbuckled his own pants. Galinn thrust inside her body that rapidly grew cold, grunting loudly as he thrust in and out with fervor. Her body, broken, mutilated and abused, moved back and forth like dead weight with every movement. When he finished, he scoffed and kicked her body to the side.

In those last moments, Dagur made eye contact with his father, and something akin to complete and utter hatred burned him from every corner of his soul.

His father had the power. His father was the chief. He had the power to do what he wanted.

And he did nothing.

When Dagur came to Berk the following year, news had spread of Erna's demise. However, it was said that it was a dragon who picked her off, not the drunken, abusive Galinn that had been Dagur's role model for far too long. Hiccup seemed to empathize with him to an extent.

"I lost my mom to a dragon, too," claimed the ten year old as he scooped up the glass ornaments that Dagur had broken.

"Dragons are demons." Dagur muttered, voice toneless.

Hiccup glanced up at him, not used to seeing Dagur so devoid of his usual rambunctious behavior. "Uh, I guess."

"And in order to slay a demon," Dagur's voice dropped to a whisper. "You must become one."

Hiccup laughed awkwardly, never truly understanding the essence of what Dagur was talking about. Dagur pushed him into the pond beside them and held him down for a few minutes, attempting to drown him, before he stalked off into the distance and used his axe to slash the nearby trees. The only expression he could manage was a sickened grin, disquieted laughter bubbling from his throat, forced and awfully unhappy. He didn't see anymore of Hiccup for the remainder of that trip.

When Dagur was seventeen, his sweltering eagerness to take his destiny as chief was churning in his being like old butter. Oswald was a man of great cowardice that let people take what they wanted from him with no reprimanding. To think of all the opportunities his power gave! If Dagur were given a moment with that sort of power, he would have used it to destroy all the weaklings of the world. The ignorant, despicable fools that were immersed in their own fearful complacency. The ones that let bad things happen even though they had the power to stop them.

Dagur was not a coward.

"You're just like your wretch of a mother!" Galinn slammed Líf against a wall, bruising her skin.

She was the same age that Dagur was when he was forced upon his mother.

Líf sobbed out as pain filled her agonized visage, and she struggled in Galinn's grip, attempting to get loose. She was strong in comparison to a lot of vikings her age, but still no match for a warrior of Galinn's aptitude. He released a bellowing laugh as he threw her down onto the ground.

Oswald sobbed in a corner as Dagur stood in the doorway, watching with widened eyes.

When Galinn ripped open her leggings, Dagur felt his resolve to obey break. Something within him tore and he lifted his axe, an anger unmatched coursing through his veins as he charged the man he once looked up to.

Dagur screamed as he threw the blade into Galinn's back, before he turned to kick the man in his side. Galinn fell with a gasp as the metal dug deep into his flesh, no doubt marring his once perfect organs. It sliced through bones easily and the splatter of blood sprayed over his face in various parts, particularly against Dagur's brow, dripping down in three neat marks over his eye.

He pulled his axe out of Galinn's back just in time for the man to turn in raged betrayal, but Dagur was quick. His grip tight on his axe, he this time slammed it into Galinn's face, cutting diagonal across his nose and eye. It sliced through with a gut-wrenching sound that forever lived on in Dagur's memory. Blood gurgled out of Galinn's mouth and poured down his chin as he fell to the ground, his one unharmed eye staring at the ceiling in frozen death.

Dagur, Líf, and Oswald stared down at the deceased man for several minutes. Dagur was breathing hard as Líf crawled forward, and yanked the axe from his disfigured face. She grazed over it with her fingers, the sticky blood coating the tips, before she handed the weapon to Dagur, her eyes fluttering but not quite blinking in a sign of anxious unconcern.

"True power," she whispered, voice hoarse and broken. "Is madness."

Dagur dwelled upon that sentiment for the next two years, falling deeper and deeper into a pit of his own self indulgent forced insanity. He became so obsessed with the thought of being crazy that, in a way, it started to become true. No one could ever be sure if it was within him all along or if it was something he conjured up out of his own beliefs.

He was nineteen when he went upon his own dragon hunting trip. He only sought one breed of beast: the Monstrous Nightmare. He returned home, spattered in dragon blood and sporting the horns of the creature as a prize. He fashioned them upon one of Galinn's old helmets, before he pushed it over his head and howled into the inky darkness of his house.

The power! The power he felt, it was surging within him, as though he was ready. He was ready to take Oswald's place. He was ready to eliminate the man who had held back their tribe, the man who was the embodiment of cowardice. All the power he had as chief.

It was Dagur's turn.

He crashed through his father's bedroom door, axe in hand as he laughed like the madman he desperately wanted to be and was, ultimately, becoming. The Monstrous Nightmare horns on his head perfected his image as he near howled in excitement.

"Don't be a disappointment!" He screamed, tone thrilling and gleeful as he waved around his weapon of choice. "Afterall, it's my turn to have the power!"

"Dagur?" Oswald startled out of his bed, backing up against the wall. "Put down that axe, Dagur!"

"You've been chief for far too long," Dagur chortled, before swinging his blade into Oswald's arm.

It sliced off in one easy hit, just as Dagur had practiced. Oswald didn't even have time to react before Dagur slashed open his abdomen. His intestines spilled over, tumbling to the ground as Oswald fell to his knees. The scream bubbling at his throat released, but only for a moment or so before Dagur pushed one killing slash to the top of his head. He continued to bash his father to an unrecognizable pile of gore, and by the time the sun rose, Dagur was coated in Oswald's innards.

Dagur laughed, even as hot tears cruelly overflowed from his eyes. He leaned forward and drank the blood from one of his father's severed arteries, slurping it up as though it would put him at ease. He didn't bother cleaning up before waltzing into town, now under the title of Beserker chief. Dagur felt a light return to his soul that day, as though something within him ignited once more. Something that had been lost.

And it was, in that way, that Dagur became a demon.

* * *

**To be quite honest I'm kind of mad at myself for writing this. I'm really more interested in the idea that there was nothing traumatizing at all about Dagur's childhood. He's just some spoiled brat who turned out to be a corrupt, power hungry heir to power. Still, I wanted to put this out there.**

**This story is in no way intended to glorify any of it's negative elements, nor is it made for you to sympathize with Dagur's past. Dagur is still a bad guy, regardless of what he's been through. That's kind of the point. I hope you liked it.**


End file.
